The Future Of Marketing: Customer Experience

We entered 5 new countries in the last 2 years which is quite a bumpy road. From zero to 60 in only a couple of months. Preparing the products, hiring locals and start to deploy and roll out processes, systems, programs and campaigns. In every new market we are facing completely different circumstances than we have in The Netherlands, our home grown market: nobody knows us. Well that is a challenging position to start with. Focus, determination and perseverance are fundamental requirements for the way how we execute within the countries. Our business software products, they give us a great starting point. 100% cloud, 100% software-as-a-service, aimed at smaller companies who want to grow their business. Our online business is growing fast, now is the time to conquer market share, cloud is hot and it brings our customers lots of value for their money. Low monthly subscription fee, no hassle and the ability to work very closely online with their bookkeeper or accountant. So far so good, but how are we going to achieve accelerated growth, what type of marketing is required for this challenge?

Brand Awareness

According to the books you start to build some brand awareness. Definitely we should do, but in new markets this will take ages unless you have unlimited budgets to run massive branding campaigns. So we have to be a bit more smarter than our competitors. From a marketing perspective in order to learn where market traction is coming from I think you should focus on the low hanging fruit. This gives the whole ‘system’ of a local office the ability to learn and adopt the specific market circumstances. In new markets this will take ages unless you have unlimited budgets to run massive branding campaignsDare-to-do, which is part of our dna and identity, is fully applicable here. Start demand generation right away to start interacting with the market place and the persona’s you are aiming for. Multiple disciplines will feel and experience in real life what Exact and this new market is about. Marketing, Sales, Product Marketing and Customer Success professionals will speak with real people in a real market. So far so good, but is this the key?

Demand Generation

Demand generation we consider us reaching out to the market place trying to engage with the persona’s we are aiming for. We believe in offering valuable stuff in order to build trust and to start building a relationship. Being utmost relevant in terms of content and timing is mandatory approaching the market in such a way. This is why our marketing Playbooks with campaigns described and worked out for 5 target audiences are crucial. One consistent way op practicing marketing across all countries which creates a certain foundation and scale ability. We believe in offering valuable stuff in order to build trust and to start building a relationship.The last mile we consider as the local relevance a Field Marketing Manager needs to focus on. There we can make the difference. The Playbook itself, created by the central Content Creation and Marketing Automation teams, contains all assets required to run a campaign. From online display banner to email nurture flows, from landing pages to info graphics and white papers, it is all in there. We measure our pipeline in one consistent way from MQi to MQL to SQL to subscription. So far so good, but is this enough?

A team of only 30 people located in Copenhagen – Denmark, grew their user base from nil to 20 million in only a couple of years!

Endomondo

People who know me are familiar with the fact I love sports. I am on the road to a full Ironman in 2016. In order to achieve this goal I make use of many technologies and apps. Apps that measure my trainings, performance and progress. This is a great era where technology is truly supporting me. All kinds of sensors I wear or are mounted on my bike. All my movements are measured and I collaborate online with my trainer who is coaching me remotely based on the figures shown in the graphs. Social, mobile, analytics and the cloud are all coming together. It is there right now, for companies for people who want to grow and achieve their goals. There are tons of apps that support me in my road to this full Ironman. Runkeeper, Runtastic, Garmin Connect, Trainingpeaks, Strava, Google Fit, Endomondo and many many more. What really fascinates me is the fact that these apps, which are fully dependent on app platforms like Google Play and Apple’s AppStore, are extremely successful in terms of number of users and the countries they cover. Take Endomondo as an example. A team of only 30 people located in Copenhagen – Denmark, grew their user base from nil to 20 million in only a couple of years! THAT is what you call accelerated growth! This to me is the key, finding out how these youngsters made this happen.

Garmin Vivosmart

Garmin XT920

Endomondo’s engagement model

Customer Experience

How were they able to grow their user base so extremely? How did they create fans and brand advocates? How is that all possible with a small things such as an app without spending any marketing money on it? The answer is pretty obvious to me: marketing = the product, the product = marketing. There are only a few global companies who created the situation for themselves where people come and get their products e.g. Apple and Google. But also these companies, it took them quite some time to be that successful. The majority of companies, and I consider Exact also as such a company, do need to make things happen of they want to achieve this accelerated growth. So a couple of weeks ago I started from scratch signing up for Endomondo and registered the whole process from first touch point until the moment I started paying. The answer is pretty obvious to me: marketing = the product, the product = marketing.I could also have taken one of the other apps mentioned because they do it more or less the same. This whole process in fact is the customer experience. Delivered in such a way where every single step has the potential to create a wow effect. The app is asking quite a lot from me. Once I install the app it asks me to gain access to all my contacts, my camera and many other things. But I am used to approve fairly quickly and I think most of us do. Also you experience that the app is not abusing this trust you gave to them. In the background they find out who else of your Facebook friends is using Endomondo and all over sudden a certain dynamic starts within the app of friends who are achieving their goals. During trainings and usage of the app and webapp they constantly notice me about their premium functionalities. Training schemes, challenges, more detailed graphs and so on. At the moments that matter to me they offer trials for this premium version or additional explanations how they can further help me achieving my goals.

Engagement Model

Once you start to register every single step you start to realize the meaning of the engagement model and entering layered commitments. It is a careful game that is played between the app vendor and the user. Every single step can result in a failure so building trust, offering true value which is relevant and meaningful for the user is key. I ended up with a big sheet with many flows and arrows showing this interaction, this game of persuading and seducing. And although marketing has always been in this area it has changed a lot. With the current state of technology, market transparency and speed the only accepted way of communication is being ultimate authentic. All must be real, true, tangible, valuable. If not, people churn. But if you are able to people will start to love work with you because you touch them and make their sports dreams in this case come true. All must be real, true, tangible, valuable. If not, people churn.I was fascinated and it made me realize we have to make the next step. The next step in marketing which will be part of our product. With this insights we challenged ourselves again based on a concept we are working on for already a year. I am excited and pretty confident that the result will be something disruptive. Something that has the potential to bring us the accelerated growth. I can’t wait to tell more about it. I feel it as the opportunity to take that other approach based on learnings and new insights we have. Contemporary market development where branding, marketing and sales are integral part of a product delivering an exciting experience for smaller companies who have the ambition to grow.

Hi, my name is Mark Appel (46), family man, modern marketing professional and amateur triathlete. Almost active for 25 years in the IT industry. Worked for companies like Apple, 3Com, Peregrine, Twinfield and currently as a global marketing director for Exact Software. I like to write about my experiences and views on the cloud, marketing and the IT industry in general. All posts are on my personal behalf.